


vicodin her vice, her real lonely lover

by WelcomeToTheBadlands



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dark, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Jedi Ben Solo, Romantic Fluff, The Dark Side of the Force, Violence, platonic fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-11-05 20:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17925446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WelcomeToTheBadlands/pseuds/WelcomeToTheBadlands
Summary: There used to be an army of children force users addled with drugs that fought the First Order's battles. Rey's the only one of them left. The Resistance doesn't want to kill her, they know the pain she's been through, the Order broadcasted her torture amongst the stars for all to see.





	1. the monster inside

 

The night was cold, but reliable in being the same temperature. The room that Rey was in was the one reliable thing in her life. It was always dark and didn’t strain her eyes. Her bed was comfortable and she could take a bath whenever she needed to. Her room was a comfort, a luxury even. She was glad that she had it. It protected her from the outside. Rey laid in bed now, knowing that she should probably get up so that she could go work out, but she did n’t want to get up. It was one of those days where moving felt like moving through molasses. She felt like if she so much as sat up, she was going to throw up. 

She just pulled her covers tighter and closed her eyes. She liked the cold. Especially when she was sweating so much. Rey heard a knock on the door and ignored it. Another knock on the door. She wasn’t going to get up. Just ignore it and it would go away. The door was kicked down. Hux had come through the door. “Time to get up, Rey.” He looked annoyed that he was reduced to doing this, but Rey didn’t care. She just held onto her covers for as long as she could. 

“You’re really going to make me drag you out of there aren’t you?” He replied. “You know that you only get a fix when you’re good. You don’t get up, you don’t get a fix.” Rey pushed herself up. “That’s good.” 

Rey planted her feet on the floor, wincing at the cold. “You can go.” She hissed. 

“No can do, you’re just going to lay back down.” 

“No,” Rey was gritting her teeth. “I just want to get dressed by myself.” The force behind her voice was enough to get Hux to turn around. 

That was the most privacy that she was ever given in her life. She appreciated it. The rest of the day was a blur of monotony to her. 

Workout. Eat. Break. Workout. Break. When Rey was done, she was finally able to get her fix. The First Order had developed a drug that enhanced the power of force users beyond belief. They made an army of children that they got addicted with the drug, Rey was the only one left. The one who’s body hadn’t burned up because of the power that she held within her. She was surprised that her body hadn’t caved in on itself like Snoke’s had. 

She supposed that it was just a matter of time at this point. Rey thought that maybe she should be concerned about that inevitability, but at this point she really didn’t care. Rey just wanted her next fix. Hux handed her two pills and she looked up at him. “There’s supposed to be more than this.” She was trying to work on her anger control. It was hard when he did shit like this. 

“You get more before a battle, you know that.” 

“I need more,” She told him. “Please.” 

“Count your blessings, Rey.” 

Rey rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She grabbed the two pills, swallowing them dry. This strain of the drug was floatier than the other, the other made her more focused until she was coming down from the high. 

She could deal with floatier though. It helped her clear her mind. She blinked rapidly, the high already coming through. She stood up, apparently stumbling a little because she ended up on the floor. Hux rolled his eyes, telling her to get up. She did, and he guided her back to her room. The sleep she had was a peaceful one. She liked that. 

* * *

The First Order was really a pain in the ass. Ben Solo was not in the Resistance or a Jedi, but he did have the Force. He was in the business of rehabilitation. Not only did the First Order had a drug for Force Users that ended up killing about a hundred children and causing the death of many, many people, but the First Order also had a strain that they sold to non-force users as well. 

They came to him when they wanted to quit. 

Ben had a ninety-eight percent success rate that he was really proud of. He wasn’t opposed to any challenge that was given to him, until this one. Leia had showed up on his door about thirty days into the year telling him that she thought that the way that the Resistance could win the war was by getting the one girl that was still in that army of force users away from the Order. 

“You realized she’s addicted to the most lethal drug in the planet, you know that right.” 

“Yeah,” Leia said, “that’s where you come in.” 

“ Oh  my fucking god.”

“Language.” 

“Mother, I’m thirty.” She hadn’t even said hello to him when she sprang this on him. He went into the kitchen, grabbing a glass from the  rinky  dink cabinet that he had and getting himself some water. “So, what do you want me to do? Capture this poor girl that’s been addicted to the most lethal drug in the galaxy since she was what, like five?” 

“Seven,” 

“That doesn’t make it any better.” 

“Please, Ben. We’re not doing well in this war, and if you don’t, I fear that the First Order will win. Weren’t you the one to say that it wasn’t Rey’s fault that she was brought into battle so often?” He did say that. 

* * *

 

_ When they first started touting around Rey at the First Order, Ben Solo was only fourteen. He felt so bad when he saw her. They seemed to revel in the violence they put her through, drugging her up and forcing her to fight to the death, televising it to the rest of the galaxy.  _

_ “We have to help her,” He told Luke when they were at the Academy. “That is not okay, we have to help all of those kids. They’re force users like us, we have to help.”  _

_ “We’re not doing anything,” Luke told him. “My job is to train you and my other students. To take care of you. I know that it sucks and I know that you want everyone to have a better life, but those kids are far too gone. They’re only going to end up dead.”  _

_ “It’s not her fault that she’s at the First Order. She shouldn’t be given up on.”  _

_ “I know it’s not her fault, but you need to let it go, Ben. Please. Let her go.”  _

* * *

__

_ “ _ We have a mission for you to go on.” Hux was talking over the intercom in Rey’s room, he wasn’t even actually coming into her room. That was a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing that Rey didn’t have to see his face, and it was curse because over the comm his voice was ten times louder and times more grating than before. 

“Fuck you.” 

“Now, now. Rey, simmer down. You like this sort of thing.” 

Rey got up. “Yeah, I like this sort of thing but your voice is fucking annoying. Turn the volume on the comms down.” Rey wished that he would just listen to her. Hux was notorious for not listening to her either and ended up turning the volume up. 

“Get dressed,” 

“Motherfucker.” 

“Now.” That definitely wasn’t helping. Rey wished that he would just die already, but at this rate, she was going to die before he did. Rey got dressed, going outside to where she was escorted to her drop ship. Her chair had a needle in one of the wrist cuffs that injected the drug into her blood stream. Rey sat down in anticipation to get her dose, knowing that she would get it as soon as she got to the ground. 

The ride down was always shaky and made Rey feel like she was going to throw up. It never got any easier, no matter how many times she did that. The fight was where it was really at. Rey was always transported to the ground at the last minute, and she was found a satisfaction in knowing that she was the one to turn the tides of the battle and level the playing field. 

All of the people she killed were just blurs, she didn’t even have to set foot onto the battleground to end it. Not unless she was bored. When Rey took the drugs that the First Order gave her, something came over her, and the high seemed to pick certain things out of the crowd of soldiers that worked to the Order’s advantage and kill a lot of people. The bloodlust would be quenched, and then they would sedate her and she would be lying back in her room. 

That was the only part of this life that was anything near satisfying. She heard screams, sounded like they were muffled by water. Her skin itched and her bones hurt, but she felt more alive than she usually felt. 

People screamed and turned to dust. 

She wasn’t doing anything new with the Force either, just echoing her pain, hoping that someone would understand. No one did. They all just died. 

Everybody died. 

She had learned that from an early age when her best friend started convulsing on the ground next to her, foaming at the mouth. She was crying because a part of her knew, she knew that the young blonde was going to die. She was wracked with sobs that were supposedly heard all throughout the ship, as Snoke had told her. He had requested that she have council with him that day, and told her the truth. 

Everybody, and he meant everybody died, and everyone was in pain. It was her job to stop the pain, and to have some enjoyment in the matter. After all, no one was long for these worlds, and she never knew when she was going to be the one dying on the floor. 

He was right. 

The Supreme Leader was always right. 

* * *

Ben finished his water and sat down next to his mother. The two of them were silent for a long time before Ben finally sighed and put his head in his hands. “Fine,” He told her. “Fine, I’ll try and rehabilitate her.” 

“Thank you.” 

“No promises,” He tells her. 

“No promises.” She agreed. “Just try.” 


	2. HONESTLY, I THOUGHT THAT I WOULD BE DEAD BY NOW

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben confront each other once, and Rey realizes she may have met her match.

“I have a new mission for you,” Snoke told Rey when she entered his chambers. Everything felt like it was under water. She was having a hard time paying attention or hearing him. She knew that if he was personally giving her the mission, it was something that was important. “This will require more restraint than the usual mission.” She nodded. “Are you paying attention?”  

“Yes, sir.” She said.  

“Good. There is a man that has been recruited to find you and take you away from the Order.” Rey felt her heart accelerate. He couldn’t do that. No one could do that.

“This is my home.” Rey’s lip quivered a little as she said that.  

“Exactly,” Snoke said. “His name is Ben Solo. Watch him. Make sure that he doesn’t succeed. I want him dead.”  

“Yes, sir.”   She said, “I won’t let you down.”  

“I know, child. I know.” Snoke grinned that lopsided, too wide grin.

* * *

_When Rey was twelve, she got really sick. Her skin felt like it was on fire, she started shaking during the middle of her dose. She fell to the ground, sure that she was going to die. Then she was still scared of death, she didn’t want to die. Her muscles revolted, throwing up all over the ground._

_She passed out, waking up in an isolated hospital room. "Ah, you're awake." The mechanical binary of the droid said. Rey felt like she was going to throw up. The droid was prepared for that. That whole week, she threw up more than she ever had in her life. Her skin felt like it was constantly being pricked at and poked with pins and needles and she was sweating through hospital gown after hospital gown._

_Then, that wasn't normal for Rey._

_Then, she was scared._

_She learned not be scared soon after._

* * *

Ben didn’t capture people anymore. It stood against everything that he believed in, but he knew that Rey wasn’t going to want to leave of her own accord. It was a necessary evil. He sighed, packing his bags for the trip that was about to happen. Something told him that he should have told his mother no, that it was too much for him to handle, but then he remembered that he practically spent four years of his life watching a girl get abused on screen, wishing that he could do something to help her.  

No one in her life ever helped her. He knew that she wasn’t the only one who had been abused and manipulated to do bad things, but every time he saw her on screen, he felt connected to her.  She was just a kid who felt alone, thinking that she had to stay with people who treated her like shit. She didn’t deserve any of the way that she was being treated now. Ben kept going through scenarios in his mind of how to capture her. Each time he ended up feeling bad, pretty sure that she was going to be traumatized any further than she already was.  

He had to be careful in the way that he approached this, he told himself as he started to head out to his ship.  

* * *

Rey was not the recon type of person. She was not subtle, she was not patient, she was the person who destroyed everything. The bringer of death was never patient, never waited to kill her prey. But Rey knew that Snoke was testing her patience, making sure that she was still worthy of the place that she had within the First Order.

Maybe it was the high talking, but Rey was more than eager to prove that she could get this mission down. Ben was someone who travelled from planet to planet. At the moment, he had landed on Takodana for a brief fuel up. She watched him go into a bar that was controlled by Maz.  

She wondered what the two of them were doing, but it really didn’t matter. She was just watching him right now. She could hear the thrum of his heartbeat from here, feel his force signature. The more she felt it, the more she realized that this man could be a really real threat to her. That’s when she started to feel afraid, her heart pounding in her chest as she stared at him.  

He could take her away from her home.  

He could take her away from the people that gave her the tough love that she needed to be worthy of the position she was in.  

She wasn’t going to let him do that.  

* * *

Ben felt like he was being watched. There was an overbearing sense of dread over his head. He stopped, looking to left and right of the forest that surrounded him. He couldn’t see anything or anyone. Maz came out in the next minute. “Are you okay, child?”  

“Yeah,” He said, “just had a bad feeling.” He turned to her, seeing the lightsaber that she had in her hands.  

“Just like you wanted.” She said. He took the lightsaber from her, remembering all the stories about when Anakin Skywalker was a Jedi, before his fall to the dark side. He smiled, biting his lip for a second as he thought about all the good and bad that came with this lightsaber before he sheathed it.  

“Thank you,” He told her, “you be careful.”  

“Yeah, right.” Maz told him. “You’re the one that I should be telling to be careful.”  

“I’ll be fine,” Ben rolled his eyes, he took a step forward so he could start leaving, “if you see my father can you say hello for me?”  

“You could just say that yourself.”  

“That would mean having to be in the same room as him,”  

“You’re going to have to face him soon.”  

“Yeah,” Ben said, “just not today.” He shrugged as he finally started to move. “Bye, Maz.”  

“Bye, Solo.” She could hear the annoyance in her voice as he started to leave. Maz always watched Ben Solo leave. She had since he was a kid. When the Jedi Academy would let Ben go out on missions, he would always stop at Takodana to get something to eat before going to do whatever he had to do, even if it meant that he had to go out of his way to get there.  

Maz would have food for him every time. Sometimes, she felt more like a mother than Leia did. Ben liked to pretend that if Padme had still been alive, that was what she would’ve been like too.  

He hated leaving, even now as an adult, but he had to.

* * *

Rey was an impulsive person. Withdrawal from the drug made her even more impulsive. She didn’t directly attack Ben Solo, but she cut a tree down right as he was passing, with the off chance that she would end up flattening him. Unfortunately, that didn’t end up working out in the way that she hoped that it was going to work out. He looked around, trying to figure out who had done that, but when he knew that he wasn’t going to get his answer he went back to his ship.  

Rey watched him make camp and wondered where he was going to go next. “I know you’re there.” He said about half way into her watch. “You cut the tree down, and honestly, I was offended but then I realized who it was and I can’t really hold it against you.” She was hiding in the shadows, had been for a long time.  

It was almost pitch-black outside, so how could he have known that she was still watching her? Rey chalked it up to her own force signature that she found hard to repress sometimes.  

“Are you going to talk to me and come down here or are you just going to stare at me up there?”  

 _I heard that you were looking for me._  

 _Ah, so you do want to talk._  

 _I’m going to give you a warning. Stop looking for me, disappear._ Something about killing an individual person instead of a faceless mass of people was off putting to Rey. This was more personal than she would’ve wanted. She just wanted the high, the satisfaction of levelling a playing field. She didn’t want to kill a face.  

 _That’s awfully generous._  

 _So I take that as a no._  

 _I have a job._  

 _You’re not going to take me from my home._  

 _The First Order is not your home. “_ Liar!” Rey shouted. She was an impulsive creature. One that couldn’t control her emotions unless it was with the drugs that she was given so often. The drugs. She forgot that she had one of the capsules in her pocket. She smiled, a familiar comfort blossomed as she thought of thing in her pocket. She wasn’t sure if she needed it yet though.  

“You know that I’m not lying,” His voice was level and calm.  

“Come down, let’s talk. I can help you.”  

She didn’t need help.  

She didn’t want help.  

She took the pill, biting down on it.  

The rush that came next was almost euphoric.  

* * *

Ben knew that he was in trouble when the roots of the trees started to snap up around him. The rocks on the ground started to levitate. She had some of the drug on her. The girl jumped down from the tree, her lightsaber ready. “Are you sure that you want to talk?” He could feel Rey’s emotions rolling off of her.  

He knew that this was going to be hard. “I don’t want to fight you,”  

“Then die,” Rey shrugged. She brought her lightsaber down in a wicked arc, but Ben moved in double time. The lightsaber he just collected flew to his hand, blocking the broken red plasma beam that would have cut him in half.  

His perception seemed to warp around him as the two of them fought, but Ben held on. Rey was projecting things out from herself, trying to make him nauseous, throw him off balance so she could get the upper hand. He knew the trick, he had seen the army of children that the First Order had do it before.  

Ben projected something else back. He was calm, he knew that she was scared, and it was okay. It was okay to be scared. _I am one with the force and the force is with me._ Rey was the type of fighter who just kept coming, she played dirty and hard until her target was dead. It was clear that the First Order hadn’t spent a lot of time training her in one on one combat though.  

She was drawing more and more on the Force, using it to get him off balance. But only sometimes. Twigs and leaves blew at him, roots snapped and bruised him, but he stood his ground. He never used the lightsaber to wound her, he just deflected her advances until she wore herself off.  

That’s when he struck.  

* * *

 

Rey felt the searing pain of a small wound at her shoulder. That wasn’t usually enough to make her retreat, but something told her that she needed to now. She was putting out so much energy she could make people turn to dust.  

He was withstanding that, and that scared her more than anything she could ever explain.  

So Rey disappeared. It was a cheap trick to get out of a fight, but she just imagined herself in a ship far far away from here and she was there. She left Ben Solo in the dust to pick up the pieces.  

* * *

 

Ben Solo was surrounded by a bunch of trees that had fallen over, and Rey was nowhere to be found. In the middle of the fight, she just vanished into thin air, and Ben had no idea how she did that. He thought that that was probably part of the enhancement that she was taking. Something told her that she went easy on him, something that he didn’t expect.  

It gave him a little bit of hope though, thinking that maybe she wasn’t so far gone. Ben headed back to his ship, sore and ready to go find Rey again. He would help her.  

Even if she didn’t want him to help her.  

  
  
  
  



	3. The Beginning of It All

Rey was left shaking. There was no one to see her cry or comfort her, but it wasn’t like anyone except for her drug was there to comfort her in the first place. Now she didn’t even have that to help her. Her supply was rationed in such a way that she had to wait for the valve to release what she needed, so she had to wait, and right now she just needed to fall asleep. She couldn’t fall asleep though. Her surroundings looked like they were melting  around her, and she didn’t know what to do about it. 

She felt someone poking at her mind, trying to mess around. It wasn’t her master though. She closed her eyes, focusing on shutting them out and not the symptoms of withdrawal that she was currently going through. Rey knew who it was, and she wasn’t going to let him win. She heard the slightest of whispers coming from him.  _ I’m sorry for scaring you, but I’m only here to help.  _ He was a liar, he was trying to take  her away from her home. She just wanted him out of her head. Why wasn’t he just getting out of her head? Someone who was trying to be nice would understand that, and just leave her alone. 

Rey opened her eyes again, and pushed herself up. She felt like she was going to throw up, but she stifled her nausea and managed to get herself onto the cot. She passed out. When she woke up, she charted course to another planet in her ship and sat down in the chair that gave her drugs. The relief that it gave her kept her going, let her slip into unconsciousness again. 

When she woke up, she had landed. She didn’t know what else she could do right now except get water and then go back to sleep, but she never got the chance to do so. Her proximity meters beeped, warning her of a ship that was right behind her. It was his ship. How had he found her so fast?

_ Please, just let me help you.  _

Rey was frozen in fear, it was weak and pathetic, something that Snoke would surely have her head for. She couldn’t help it though. Here was a man who could resist her powers, even when she was on her  drugs, and now he managed to find her quickly. She didn’t let the door open. He didn’t force the door open either, but she could feel him there.  _ Let me help you.  _

***

Rey was in the middle of training when she was thrown on the floor.  One of the kids that she was training with reached her hand out. Rey took it, mistaking the gesture for kindness. The girl yanked her hand back as far as she could, stepping on it without a second thought. The pain in Rey’s arm was blinding. “Never believe that someone is kind,” Hux had told her when she was in the  medbay . He was also getting seen for some sort of injury that Rey was pretty sure was inflicted by his father. “That will get you killed in the end.” 

***

Rey sat down, knowing that she would have to confront the man outside of her ship eventually. She just needed a plan.  _ Can we at least talk?  _ She closed her eyes, knowing that there was no way to get him out of her head. 

She could just give up, she remembered that there was always a last resort pill in the ship that would kill her if she was taken. She wasn’t so sure that she was ready to die though. It would happen eventually, but she didn’t want to die yet.  _ Please, let’s talk. It can be about anything. I want to get to know you.  _

_ There is nothing to know. _

_ I wouldn’t be so sure about that.  _ Rey wanted to kill this man. He knew nothing about her and he never would know her. 

_ Go away.  _

_ I can’t do that.  _

_ “ _ Go away,” Rey screamed in her ship. “Go away, go away, go away!” She knew that no one in the ship would hear her, but that didn’t make a difference. She wanted to go back home, but she couldn’t do that until this stain of a man was out of her life. 

Everything was trembling around her, and her heart rate started to pick up. She knew where he was, right outside of the ship, waiting. Rey picked up her lightsaber, knowing that if she got him to come up the landing, she would have the high ground. Ben was more of an experienced fighter though. She knew that he wouldn’t fall for that trick. 

***

She was scared, like a bird that knew it was about to die. Except the last thing that Ben wanted to do was kill her. He just needed to get her away from that ship and incapacitate her. He knew that she was going to give him some resistance on that front, but he wasn’t sure how much. He could sense her right there, about to open the door. She was waiting, trying to work up the courage to do such a thing. 

The drug was wearing off. She wasn’t as courageous as before. Finally, she did. The red of lightsaber was crackling already. She didn’t look so good. Ben clicked his lightsaber off. Something that clearly confused her. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He told her. “I’m not going to fight back either.” 

“Then die,”  Rey hissed. 

She surged at him, and Ben moved out of the way. Luke had always told Ben that hurting the person he was fighting wasn’t always the best or right move. He hadn’t known what he means until now. 

It was almost like they were dancing, a brutal streak of red dividing the two of them. Rey was getting more tired by the second. “Why aren’t you fighting back?” Rey screeched. 

They were almost to the point where he could subdue her without struggle. Rey seemed to be on her last leg. She gave one last swing to hit him, managing to graze him on the shoulder before Ben got his blaster out, (it was set to stun) and shot her. 

***

When Rey woke up, she was in an interrogation chair in a place she didn’t know. Part of her wanted to panic. Part of her wanted to scream, but she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her weak. 

Ben walked into the room a few moments after shew had woken up. “I didn’t want to restrain you.” He said. “But something tells me that’s the only way this could work out right now.” 

Rey stared at the space behind the man’s shoulder. “Are you hungry?” She wouldn’t answer. He asked more questions, but Rey stopped moving. Stopped everything. He left for the time being, probably frustrated. Rey didn’t know how long it was before she saw him again, but it wasn’t long enough. He carried a water bottle with him. “You need to drink.” Rey didn’t even look at him. He unscrewed the lid and help it to her lips. She shouldn’t have taken a drink, but the closer she was to water, the more she realized just how dehydrated she was. She wanted it all, but he only let her get a couple of gulps in before he cut her off. 

“Are you ready to talk?” 

Silence. 

“I’ll come back.” 

It was a day before he came back, holding a bowl of soup. Everything was hot, Rey’s eyes and leg hurt and her clothes were thick with her own sweat. She wanted to cry, to plead for him to let her go. But that would only make his superiority complex bigger. “Are you ready to talk yet? I’m sure you have a few questions.” 

“Where am I?” 

“You’re my guest,” He told her. Rey called bullshit on that. He moved closer to the soup. “And you’re in a place where you’re safe.” 

“Yes, because a cell on some planet where I’m tied to a chair constantly screams safety to me.” She never knew what safe was, but she was sure that it didn’t feel like this. She looked to Ben, who actually looked a little guilty at the fact that he had locked her up like that. He was smart enough to know that she would kill him if he let her out though. 

“Safer than with the Order,” 

“The Order is my home.” 

“They’re not.” 

“You wouldn’t understand.” 

“Are you hungry?” The change in conversation almost gave Rey whiplash. “I think you should eat.” Rey only got a few  spoonfuls  of soup before being done. He put the bowl down. “How are you feeling?” 

“Why should you care?” 

“Because you don’t have your drugs on you and if we’re going to get you to quit, weening you off them would be better than you just making you quit cold turkey.” The thought of her not having anything for her high was foreign to Rey. 

“I don’t want to quit.” 

“I know.” 

“Then why are you doing this?” She felt nauseous as she heard her voice broke. She tried so hard not to show herself being vulnerable. 

“Because you might change your mind. And when you do change your mind, you’ll need help.” 


	4. everybody gets high, why the hell can't I?

Rey had thrown up twice in the past three hours. Ben felt like he probably wasn’t going to be getting any sleep. “I have meds that’ll make this a little less bad, you just  gotta  tell me how bad it is so I know what to give you.” Rey was sweaty and weak and gross and he felt fine taking her out of her restrains. He had some different changes of clothes for her and when he put them on the ground he went to head out of the room and let her change. 

“What are you doing?” She asked. 

“Leaving so you can change.” She blinked several times, she looked confused, and that just made Ben feel worse than before. He closed the door and let her change before coming back into the room. She still looked too weak to even think about fighting, about going back to the Order. 

Most of all she just looked confused. “If you think that this will make me want to go to the Resistance, it’s not going to work.” 

“That’s not what I want to do.” He said. “Personally, I’m more in the business of helping people, not in the business of politics.” 

“And yet your mother is the leader of the Resistance, are you sure that you’re not in the business of politics?” 

“Trust me, I’ve fought enough to get as far away from my parents as possible to make sure that I wasn’t associated with that. I think there’s good people on both sides.” He watched as she went behind the chair that formerly restrained her, legs shaking from not having walked in the past few days. 

“You’re not going to imply that I’m a good person who’s just severely misguided, are you?” 

“Are you a good person?” He asked her pointedly. 

“No,” 

“What makes you so sure?” 

“Good people don’t kill people.” 

“ So  in your point of view, the only good people in this galaxy are children and newborns.” 

“Basically.” Rey shrugged.

“Why did you start killing?” This was a question that Rey probably didn’t expect him to ask. She knit her eyebrows together for a second and then replied, 

“Because they told me to.” 

“Would they punish you if you didn’t?” 

“Only to teach me that I needed to be strong if I wanted to survive.” 

“That sounds awful.” Rey shrugged. “Parents punish their children all the time. Get over it. It happens.” 

“That doesn’t make abuse any better,” 

Rey froze in her spot, every time she looked at him, she looked like a deer in headlights. Her hair tangled and her forehead damp from the sweat. “Can I take a shower?” She asked. “Please?” 

“Yeah,” He said. He motioned for her to come with him, but only waited until she was in front of him. Everything seemed to be good, he waited outside of the refresher that the ship had. He knew that in times like these, it was natural to feel dirty, and even after she showered, one, two, three times. She was going to feel dirty. It wasn’t until halfway through the fresher session that Ben started to feel that there was something very wrong with whatever was going on. 

He heard a thud, and at first, he yelled out, “You okay in there?” 

“Yeah,” Rey said. “Just slipped a little.” But that noise was a little too loud to be a slip. Ben got up, about to open the fresher to check on her when he was met by a blow to the stomach. Rey had pulled off the handle bar on the side of the fresher and decided to use that as a weapon. She was still fully clothed, and had just used the shower as a distraction. 

That act that she had put on, pretending to be weak and helpless couldn’t be any further from the truth. She hit him two more times before he grabbed the bar from her and she held her hands up like she was ready to get the worst beating in her life. 

***

Rey wasn’t proud to admit that she was scared of Ben, but she was more scared of the fact that she couldn’t feel the Force, and that felt awful. She was always able to at least feel the Force around her, no matter how bad her withdrawals got. “I understand, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She quivered. “You can punish me, just please make it quick.” This wasn’t so much of an act. She just didn’t know what this man was capable. 

Snoke always told her to beware the kind people, they were the ones you had to look out for. Always acting so that no one really knew what they were capable of. That was Ben Solo, he was that kind person that Rey wasn’t sure what he was capable of. He could very much kill her in the worst way possible and Rey wouldn’t expect it. 

At least with Snoke or Hux she knew what she was expecting. “Can you go back in and take a shower without coming out here and trying to attack me?” She nodded and he lowered the bar. “Then do it.” Rey wanted to start crying. He should have punished her. 

What was this man’s deal?

She didn’t question it, going back to take a shower and coming out feeling just the slightest bit better. “Are you better now?” He asked her. 

“I feel lightheaded,” This was the first truth that she really told him.  _ You’re weak.  _ She felt a tiny bit of guilt in her chest as she felt herself betraying the First Order. “And I uh, I’m sorry about earlier.” 

“Sure,” He said. “Let’s get you back to your room.” Rey started walking back to her room. She felt like she was on fire and cold at the same time. Apparently, she was veering a little bit to the right, (she thought it was just the way the ship was flying), but Ben course corrected her and led her back to her room. “Now that you got that little display of aggression out, can we agree that it’s just not smart to do that?” 

Rey nodded. 

“And I’m not going to hurt you,” He told her. “ So  you can stop that?” 

“How can I trust you?” She asked. “Really? I don’t know anything about you and I just want my fucking drugs.” 

“You can’t have your drugs,” She wanted to cry. It was the only thing that she wanted. She wanted to feel the Force again, to have it comfort her in a floaty silence that only the drug could comfort her with. This is when she actually started to cry. “I can give you another pill that’s similar,” He told her. “Would you like that?” She hated herself for saying yes. She took and it swallowed it with some water without even asking him what it was.

_ You’re weak.  _ Snoke’s voice vibrated throughout her mind. She knew as she drifted away that her dreams were going to be plagued with nightmares.

***

Rey was in the throne room when she was fifteen. She was supposed to kill everyone except one person in the arena that they had put her in. She killed everyone. There was still blood drying underneath her fingertips. “Someone got a little too ambitious, didn’t they?” Snoke’s laugh had never been a friendly one, it made Rey uneasy, even then when she was a kid. “I like that you wanted to prove yourself,” Rey knew that she shouldn’t speak, even though she almost opened her mouth to, “But you must know that my word is the word that you must always follow. So here is your punishment.” Three of the kids that had been nice to her were pushed into view in the throne room. She watched as all three of them were injected with lethal doses of the drug. 

“Fight them without your lightsaber.” She watched as all of them started to jerk and twitch, and started to mutate. Some growing longer necks, some bent certain ways, there back arching in ridiculous ways. And then there were long fingers, slender and spiderlike in nature. “Show some restraint though. Leave one.” 

They started to skitter throughout the room, circling her like prey. Rey closed her eyes, dropping her lightsaber to the floor like she was asked to. The first one lunged, and Rey broke its neck with the Force. The second one sunk its teeth into her shoulder, and she screamed out in pain as in locked its jaw. 

_ “Don’t be weak,” _  Snoke said. “Don’t disappoint me, child. Don’t disappoint me.” Rey threw the second one off as the third made a swipe for her. Rey ducked as the third one swiped again, its impossibly long fingernails swiping the other one in the neck and slitting its throat. Rey backed up as the mutated thing lunged for her, and was promptly shot down by one of Snoke’s guard. She was bleeding profusely from her shoulder. But she stood there, waiting patiently. 

“Good.” He said. “Go get your shoulder looked at now,” 

“Thank you, Supreme Leader.” 

***

Rey woke up screaming. Ben ran in not long after, “Hey,  ssh . It’s just a dream. It’s a dream.” It most certainly wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. One that made the wound in her shoulder ache. When Rey’s breathing had elevated, Ben looked like he was going to leave when Rey said, 

“Stay. Please.” 


	5. Chapter 5

“Stay. Please.” She said please like she was desperate.  He understood. She didn’t want to be without contact right now.  Ben sat down tentatively and she just stared at him for the longest time. “I don’t trust you.” 

“That’s fine,” Ben said. 

“But you’re the only option for company that I have, so I guess that I’ll have to settle.” The both of them laughed, and Ben felt like maybe they were making a little bit of progress. 

“We don’t have to talk.” He said. “We don’t even have to be friends but I do want you to trust me.” Rey nodded. She looked cold. 

“Do you want a blanket?” She shook her head no. 

“It’s so hot in here.” It was about fifty degrees in the room. “Can you turn it down?” 

“Is it okay if I take your temperature?” She’s about to protest but too weak to move. He has a thermometer on him. She wasn’t breaking a fever. She was awfully close though. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go get some meds for you so you can sleep better.” Rey shook her head and closed her eyes. He knew what she was going through right now. She didn’t want him to leave but  he did anyways.  

He came back with meds that she took without hesitation. She fell asleep not long afterwards. He came back a day later to see her sitting in the same place that she had sat before. “I can’t feel the force.” She said numbly. Ben sat down again. Her voice was so quiet that Ben almost didn’t hear her when she spoke. 

“Are you sure?” She nodded. 

“Well that doesn’t mean that it’s not there.” 

“You can’t know that.” 

“I can,” Ben protested as he stared at her. “It just means that you’re going to have to work hard to get it back.” 

“I doubt that I’ll survive long enough for that.” 

“Why are you so intent on dying?” 

“It happens to everyone, I guess that I’m just the only one who’s not afraid of it though.” No, that was a lie. Ben could see it on her face. 

“If you weren’t afraid to die, you wouldn’t have lasted this long.” He told her. “ I know you’re afraid. It’s okay to be afraid.” That earned him a hand enclosed around his wrist as Rey pushed him into the wall. He deserved that. 

“You talk too much.” Her fingers didn’t enclose around his throat very tight, but there was a very clear message there.  _ Talk too much and I won’t hesitate to snap your neck.  _ She released him and got up. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” 

He left that day. He wasn’t sure how long that this cycle of being somewhere between friendly and enemies was going to continue, but he needed it to stop. He needed her to trust him, otherwise none of this would ever work. Ben rolled around ideas in his head as he stayed in the cockpit of the ship that he was commandeering. 

***

The ship had taken off and landed somewhere else. Rey could feel it. She felt like she could feel everything move too much. Even when the ship had landed, she still felt like she was moving. Her head hurt way too much for any sort of hope going to sleep and she felt so  so  cold. That’s when Ben came in. “Let’s go on a walk.” He told her. Rey didn’t even feel like she could get up. Why was he bothering her with this right now? “Come on, you need some fresh air.”

He held out her hand and she stared at it for a second before taking it. He helped her up and she stumbled for a few seconds before gaining her balance. She hated feeling weak, and this made her feel weak. The two of them didn’t talk as they left the ship. The first thing that Rey thought when she left the ship was that she hadn’t been here before. Everything was so green, trees towered larger than life over her. The air around her was like breathing in life. The ache of nausea was slowly starting to subside. “It’s nice out here, isn’t it?” He asked her. 

“Where are we?” 

“It’s better that you don’t know.” Ben said. 

“How is that supposed to make me trust you?” 

“It’s not.” He said. “But it’s a precaution. Don’t want you going back to the First Order.” So, he didn’t trust her. How hypocritical  it was of him to say that he could trust her when he wouldn’t tell her information like this. She understood why he would do such a thing; she wouldn’t trust herself either. She decided not to focus on Ben, instead breathing in slowly, enjoying the feeling of not suffocating. 

The breeze made her even more cold than she already was, but for the most part the walk was enjoyable. She got tired a lot quicker than she thought that she would, collapsing by a tree for a brief moment. The grass under her was soft, and the sunlight that dappled through the trees shone softly on her skin. She could die here.  It was peaceful. “You need to get up.” Ben told her. 

“Just give me a minute.” She told him. “Tired.” He gave her one minute. Exactly one minute. Rey hated this man.  Rey hated him so much. He was so annoying, and for what? What did he have to gain out of this? Rey would never like him, she would never appreciate the hell that he was putting her through. 

“Come on, let’s go back to the ship so you can sleep.” 

“I hate you,” 

“I know.” 

“I really hate you.” 

“I know.” She wasn’t going to get a reaction out of him. She was only going to get this smug demeanor that was scarred into her brain by this point. How would she get back at him? She threw up on his shoes. Not only was it bad for the both of them, but Rey passed out afterwards, making Ben suffer through the walk to carry her back to the ship and place her in bed before washing his shoes. She hoped that there were still bits of throw up stuck in his shoes when she woke up. 


End file.
